I came across a couple of recipes on the web for ‘Animal Burgers’ – which are, apparently, a specialty of the In-N-Out burger chain. They called for slathering the burgers in yellow mustard before cooking, then serving them with onions cooked in bacon fat and mustard and, of course – because we are talking burgers here – a special sauce. I cannot speak to how closely this comes to an actual In-N-Out burger (I’ve never had one), but I can say that this method makes for one very fine burger, and that you should most certainly try it.
INGREDIENTS
Special Sauce:
•1/4 cup mayonnaise
•2 tbsp French dressing*
•1 tbsp chop pickle (or pickle relish)
•1/4 tsp dried onion
•1/4 tsp sugar
•1/8 tsp Aleppo pepper
•1/8 tsp black pepper
Onions:
•2 tbsp bacon fat
•2 tbsp yellow mustard
•1 sweet onion, sliced
Burgers:
•Ground beef
•Yellow Mustard
•Salt
•Pepper
*Most any French dressing will do, but I have a new, creamy French dressing recipe coming up next week that worked a treat for this sauce.
First things first, preferably a couple of hours or a day ahead (to let the flavors blend), make the special sauce by whisking the ingredients together, then stash in a covered jar in the fridge.
Next, the onions; this’ll take close to two hours, but it’s worth it:
Melt the bacon fat in a skillet over medium high heat, then stir in the mustard and the sliced sweet onion until the onion is nicely coated with the bacon fat and the mustard.
Reduce the heat to low-ish, cover and cook for 90 minutes, stirring every now and then.
Special sauce and onions sorted out, it’s time to deal with the burgers.
We followed one web site’s advice and cooked our burgers on foil laid over the gas grill.
It worked out OK, but next time (and there will be a next time, these were good burgers!), we’re just gonna place the meat directly on the grill and skip the foil.
Preheat your grill to medium high. Form ground beef into patties and make an indentation in each. Season the patties on both sides with salt and pepper, then brush the bottom of each patty with yellow mustard.
Lightly brush the grill grates with vegetable oil, then grill the patties, indentation-side up, until marked on the bottom, about 5 minutes. Brush the top of the patties with more yellow mustard, then flip and cook until marked and slightly firm, about 3 more minutes for medium.
For cheeseburgers, add your cheese of choice during the last minute of cooking; covering the grill to melt.
Remove from the grill and set aside, loosely covered, to rest for five minutes before serving.
I’ve said it a couple of times…
NICE BURGERS!
Rich doesn’t even care for fried onions, but he liked these, and cooking the burgers in a bit of yellow mustard?
Genius!
Serve with special sauce, ketchup, lettuce, tomato, y’know, all the usual suspects.